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China Just Launched Two Astronauts Into Orbit (bbc.com)
An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes the BBC: China has launched two men into orbit in a project designed to develop its ability to explore space. The astronauts took off from the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Centre in northern China at 23:30 GMT on Sunday [7:30 p.m. EST].
The plan is for them to dock with and then spend 30 days on board the Tiangong 2 space station testing its ability to support life. This and previous launches are seen as pointers to possible crewed missions to the Moon or Mars.
NBC calls this evidence of "the intensifying U.S.-China space rivalry... With the current U.S.-led International Space Station expected to retire in 2024, China could be the only nation left with a permanent presence in space."
The plan is for them to dock with and then spend 30 days on board the Tiangong 2 space station testing its ability to support life. This and previous launches are seen as pointers to possible crewed missions to the Moon or Mars.
NBC calls this evidence of "the intensifying U.S.-China space rivalry... With the current U.S.-led International Space Station expected to retire in 2024, China could be the only nation left with a permanent presence in space."
In the mid 1990s, China was not allowed to join the ISS over human rights concerns. Of course,that didn't stop us from welcoming Russia which also had a terrible history, and it isn't like he threat of not being in the ISS changed China's behavior at all. So the end result is that China instead has a very strong and fast growing space program of their own when instead we could be cooperating with them.
Not sure if trolling....
FTFA: "China is only the third country - after Russia and the US - to carry out its own crewed space missions. "
Also being doing it since before 2006: Chinese Astronauts
China put their first man in space in 2003, with a completely independent program rather than scraps of Russian hardware. It was decimated by 100 years of industrial warfare against the entire western world, putting even the Soviet Union to shame for their significantly slower recovery from a paltry German invasion.
That's the thing about Chinese astronauts. A half hour after you launch one, you want to launch another.
You are welcome on my lawn.
Pitiful idiots hiding in the shadows hide the truth they don't like to see.
China is no rival of the USA in space exploration.
Right, there is no rivalry: China can send people into space and the USA cannot. Also, China has its own space station, and the USA can only pay Russia for a lift to the ISS, which is international.
So, the capabilities are not the same.
Firefly's backstory contains an element about the US and China being the powers that drove into space:
"The show blended elements from the space opera and Western genres, depicting humanity's future in a manner different from most contemporary science fiction programs in that there are no large space battles. Firefly takes place in a multi-cultural future, primarily a fusion of Western and East Asian cultures, where there is a significant division between the rich and poor. As a result of the Sino-American Alliance, Mandarin Chinese is a common second language; it is used in advertisements, and characters in the show frequently use Chinese words as curses. According to the DVD commentary on the episode "Serenity", this was explained as being the result of China and the United States being the two superpowers that expanded into space."
-- Wikipedia on Firefly
I don't know if anyone remembers, but at the time the space station was being constructed many scientists complained that there was no clear purpose for the project.
It was said (at the time) that there were no compelling experiments that needed to be done (in long-term weightlessness), and that the money could be better spent on other more interesting astronomical projects such as rovers, off-Earth exploratory missions, orbital telescopes, and such.
To date I still don't think any really ground-breaking science was done at the station. Yeah, little PR things like how cats cope with zero G, and how spiderwebs look in space, but basically nothing very useful.
Now we have this provocative headline "China could be the only nation left with a permanent presence in space!" and... yeah? So what?
We haven't lost the ability to put things into orbit, and space stations are enormously expensive.
Let's solve a couple of our problems down here on Earth first.
I always thought this was so silly. In China, they do not call their space travelers Taikonauts. That's an English word. Why should we have different words for an astronaut based on their nationality? If we were talking about a garbageman, no one would bother making up a new English word for that occupation that is specific to each nationality. The whole thing seems like a backwards legacy of the cold war and the original space race, where we wouldn't dare refer to the competition using the same nomenclature used for NASA's astronauts.
Better known as 318230.
50 years ago is 1966
In 1969 we had the tech to send people to the moon. Being 50 years behind isn't bad since 50 years ago they were 100 years behind us. At that rate growth, and our lack of growth I give China 25 more years to surpass us.
The n you should be scared.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
appears to be a certainty doing this, if they go out above the Van Allen Belt.
Dunno....
https://www.nasa.gov/pdf/28427...
Can you stop posting this bullshit on every article about the Chinese space program? The Chinese for astronaut is "yuhang yuan" (literally "space-navigating personnel") and official English-language media releases from the Chinese space program use the word "astronaut". "Taikonaut" is some bastardised Chinglish abomination invented by English-speaking novelists during the cold war.
Let China do what it wants to do, speaking as an american we need to rethink the space program and stop being nationalistic over it.
I'll applaud China, or Russia, or The EU landing on Mars first as heartily as I would America.
I just wish all of the space nations would stop doing it for dick measuring, and instead worked together and made sure we as the world got the best bang for the buck.
Until then, I'm all for not participating in any race to the stars.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
As usual, The Onion provides an insightful and thought-provoking retrospective on China's astronautical policies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPQH60bhFdA
In casual speech in Hong Kong and Taiwan, astronauts are often called "taikong ren" (literally "space people") - this is probably where "taikonaut" comes from, a weird portmanteau of that with "astronaut". But no-one actually uses the word "taikonaut" besides novelists as far as I can tell. English releases from Chinese companies always use "astronaut".
Chinese space travelers are Taikonauts, much as Russian space travelers are Cosmonauts.
So what do you call a Chinese-born American resident who travels on a Soyuz spacecraft to work in the Italian-built ESA module of the International space station?
China is no rival of the USA in space exploration. China is about 50 years behind the USA
Pretty sure that's what I heard a certain hare say about a certain tortoise right before he went to sleep and lost the race.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"China is about 50 years behind the USA in just about any indicator of space progress or achievement...."
In my own lifetime, China was noted primarily for starving to death. Now look at their rate of progress. I wouldn't be surprised to see them reach Mars ahead of us.
An incalculably complex problem methodically broken down into millions upon millions of mind numbing, soul crushing, number crunching accounting exercises. In triplicate.
The US is almost 50 years behind the US at this point. How long would it take the US to launch a manned moon mission?
Learn to love Alaska
Re "Given the hostility towards science in the US these days, I am not very confident in how "temporary" a situation it is that america is unable to perform their own launches into space these days."
Thats why Russia, India and China put so much effort in keeping their production lines working at any cost over the decades.
Most smart nations can lift something into space. The real effort is in getting just the perfect design for every complex, sensitive payload. Humans, sensitive science without risking epic shake apart.
The metallurgy has to be nurtured and kept in house and staff kept working, passing down skills. A start up 20 years later is just a huge problem trying to relearn what was lost and never well documented due to "security" or "no bid" or just the thought that the company would always have the skills for every step. Test a new design that might never offer the features needed.
Stopping the budgets of a set of rocket systems tends to really slow later rocket making skills.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
I, for one, think we should stay in the trees. We have enough problems to solve here before we go roaming the grasslands in search of denser food sources.
That gave me a chuckle.
Well played, sir!
The US is almost 50 years behind the US at this point. How long would it take the US to launch a manned moon mission?
Probably less than the last time. We have some pretty good rockets again now. Now our corporations are capable of going to space, it doesn't even take our government any more. Let me know when China or Russia make it to that point.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
the moon is outside the magnetosphere too
How long would it take the US to launch a manned moon mission?
Well, it is going to take 30 years to finish the BART extension from Fremont to San Jose, and a moon landing is more complex than that. So it could be a while.
And they are only of only two who can send humans into space now.
As far as you know.
So, the capabilities are not the same.
Capabilities or will? (politics, budget, priorities, debt, mumble mumble mumble...)
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
Tell us about China's probes to all the planets, their sun observatories, the exoplanets they've found, their probe that's left the solar system....
Tell me when our corporations start outdoing government space agencies and not just retreading old ground but in a cheaper, less reliable, fashion. Corporations have yet to actually LEAD the way in space.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
Hard working, more likely.
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
By that logic, America can't even put someone in the air.
Corporations are the ones who really do the R&D. NASA is mostly a funding agency.
The Chinese were likely the first to observe the sun and space in a rational manner. As for current sun observatories, they're working on it.
They also landed on the moon a couple of years ago. We haven't been able to go there for over forty years.
Largest telescope in the world? The Chinese FAST single aperture radio telescope is more than 200,000 square meters, around three times as much as the second largest (Arecibo in Puerto Rico).
I think it would be wise to not rest on our laurels and dismiss the Chinese space program. It's rapidly overtaking NASA in more and more areas.
Space isn't about going up. Space is about going fast and orbit is half the way to everywhere in the solar system.
You owe me a cup of coffee and a new keyboard. Well played, sir, well played!
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The moon has a fair amount of disadvantages for a permanent base. Hard to find water and CO2, for example, which are pretty abundant on Mars. The soil is very abrasive because the hard edges of small grains are not weathered since there's no atmosphere. Nights are 15 earth-days long, as apposed to around 25 hours on Mars. No protection at all from micrometeorites, versus at least a little bit of atmosphere burning up the smallest meteorites on Mars. Etcetera. It's not like all these people planning a Mars base have never thought about maybe making one on the moon first. Apparently they have their reasons.
It would be cool, though, if SpaceX would send their spaceship to the moon first as a kind of test run to check whether everything is working properly. In a nonchalant way, because the moon is easy. That would be fun to see.
I was taught "hangtianyuan" or "taikongren" but my wife confirms that "yuhangyuan" is also perfectly acceptable (but usually seen only newspapers and the like, according to her).
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Dunno, but I'd be interested in learning if he can eat borscht with chopsticks in zero-G.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
The USA is perfectly capable of landing a probe on the moon at any time. It's a lot easier than Mars, where we've landed numerous probes/rovers. There simply hasn't been any interest in doing so -- the USA's current interests in the moon have been better served with orbiting probes and intentional impacts.
This space intentionally left blank
Also, Russian astrologers are called kosmonomers.
China's new FAST radio telescope on the ground could be nearly as important as James Webb, but I do wish they'd focus more of their space launches on that kind of science.
This space intentionally left blank
Surviving the trip is still problematic. Fantasy industry doesn't happen - without people there is no use and distance costs more than everything you claim is a Mars advantage. There is plenty of water on the moon in shadows and exploitation doesn't require years (more cost again in time) to start.
Problem: You can't grow potatoes using moon dist and poop.
Mars dust works fine though.
No sig today...
Tell us about China's probes to all the planets, their sun observatories, the exoplanets they've found, their probe that's left the solar system....
Just because they started late doesn't mean they can't overtake you. Just sayin'.
No sig today...
What annoys me more is that such Chinese activities are almost a secret to the rest of the world, I don't know if they or us are to blame for that. I guess the majority of us did not even know they had two space stations, astronauts doing space walks, and what about that probe they sent to the moon? I mean, this achievements are so important for human kind in general, they should at least share the non-strategic details with the rest of the world.
If you take all the toxic metals out.
Should read "the intensifying Russia-China space rivalry"
The USA do not have a way to get people into orbit apart from asking for a lift.
Can we get back from here or will it be like the British rocket program that just fizzled out and was never restarted?
All we can do currently is something like the Mercury project of 1958. We don't have the launcher ready for anything bigger and may not for years.
Only in the movies.
Meanwhile in reality (as shown with a very simple google search) both have been used:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11538023
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0103138
Temporary is saying that under the Ford administration and not under the Obama one.
Mars also has an atmosphere apparently allowing a judicious mission planner to lower the delta V required for getting to the surface of Mars below the delta V required to get to the lunar surface (in one piece!). It also allows you to refuel for your trip back quite easily and also has a gravity more suitable for humans. (Of course, then there's the issue of the one-way trip to Mars lasting six months. The difference in delta V requirements could partly compensate for it, though.)
Regarding micrometeoroids...interestingly, the opinion seems to be that these are much more unlikely to hit you in the interplanetary space. We're merely fueling the cislunar space with our own crap in stable orbits.
Ezekiel 23:20
Just shows Wheedon is paying attention - the Russian economy is still tied to resources so while they have the technology it's China and the USA that have the money to use it. Russia has had a century to get to where it is now while China has surpassed it starting from a low base around 1970.
What toxic metals?
Ezekiel 23:20
It was decimated by 100 years of industrial warfare against the entire western world,
Uh, no.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
The moon is 200 times closer and better suited for all visitation and logistics problems. Those have to come first. Mars is a toxic landscape requiring trips through space subjecting vehicles to millions of micro-asteroids and radiation bombardment which nothing similar has survived long term. Satellites hide in the magnetosphere, and Voyager is a light probe.
Mars doesn't have a global magnetosphere.
Why would you be talking about Voyager in the context of Mars? Voyager had fuck all to do with Mars.
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
In terms of time or in terms of money? At this point it seems that less money but more time is required (because even the technological progress and related savings haven't outstripped the funding cuts yet).
Ezekiel 23:20
They already did.
Ezekiel 23:20
Funny. Almost the same was said in the 1990s about their manufacturing ability.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Put the label on the pile back there.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Putting men into orbit and on the moon had no immediately applicable results. No, we didn't get rich off the moon rocks we got home. But what happened during this time caused the US to lead the economy for decades after. It forced us to come up with new solution to new problems, the US made progress that's been seen before only in times of war when innovation was crucial for survival. And all that without the bloodshed.
There were huge leaps ahead in metallurgy, propulsion, computers, electronics, medicine and a lot of other fields, but this also marked the beginning of key elements that we today consider cornerstones of efficiency, from process management to risk management and disaster recovery procedures.
So believe it or not, launching people into orbit has its merits. It forces you to solve problems that do have very real applications down here on our planet.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Is it true the astronauts' names are Laika and Gordo?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Long distance?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Oops, not metals, I meant percholarates. (I knew there was something toxic in the Martian soil, but was too lazy to google what it was).
from a paltry German invasion.
Paltry? I don't think I have ever seen that adjective applied to the Eastern Front. I'm more used to seeing it described along the lines of "The battles on the Eastern Front constituted the largest military confrontation in history."
Who put a rover on the moon in the last few years?
Who made the components in the computer that you wrote your post on?
Which country just launched a satellite in August 2016 to perform quantum entanglement experiments over 1000's of miles, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... Notice it's the Austrian Academy of Science involved here, not a US based institution.
Travel around Los Angeles, measure the air pollution, look at the state of the roads, ask people how many hours a day they spend on transportation, find out who has healthcare, look at what people eat, and then tell me that isn't backwards. That city has a long way to go to being a pleasant place to live.
You might wake up in a few years and realize what was going on around you but you refused to notice
The smartest people in America are helping Tech Companies deliver ads and make you post your breakfast publicly. This is a scandal of wasted human resources? Where do you think China is investing it's brains?
Who just bought Lexmark, leaving Xerox the only copier maker in the US?
Why replicate what others have already done? Did the US have to land on Venus just because the Russian did?
China has specific goals, to get their own space station up and running and then on to the moon. They have also been at it for much less time than the US or Russia, which took many decades to get all those probes out there.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Typhoon = Hurricane, only difference is the Ocean. And those are the US English versions. In Missouri, we refer to 1,500 feet tall hills as mountains...
It's cultural bias to some degree, it's differentiation as well. It could also be respectful or derogatory (racism for example), depending on implicit meanings.
And from a US perspective, people in Russia that go into space are Cosmonauts, so there's a third English example for people that go to space.
BlameBillCosby.com
Have you read that document in its entirety?
I consider myself a fairly laid back person, liberal (in a more original sense than is perhaps used today), with a strong live and let live attitude towards life, and yet I can't bring myself to see eye to eye with some of the articles and the overall wording of that declaration.
While it is undoubtedly a 'good thing' (TM) I suspect you have to live with unicorns and smoke rainbows to fully jive with what it says...
As individuals we may disagree over whether certain things should be considered universal rights--personally, I often disagree with decisions about whether someone should have a right. But that document is a core part of the accepted definition of human rights.
The definition of human rights is an artifact of public international law. Most lawyers, scholars, and diplomats consider the primary documents to be the "International Bill of Rights," which includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Eleanor Roosevelt's legacy after WW2), as well as two other treaties--one on Civil and Political Rights (The ICCPR), and one on Social and Economic Rights (the ICESCR). Of the two treaties, each has about 160 states who are parties. The United States is one of the outliers in that it has signed but not ratified the one on Social and Economic Rights, which means the treaty is not entirely binding in domestic law of the United States, although it is incorporated into United States law indirectly under something called the "Charming Betsy" doctrine.
Real lawyers write in C++
Yeah, because we've never sent anything to Mars before. Tell me about something that is not just a cheaper version of something that's already been done. I'm talking about LEADING the way. It's much easier to do something once the costs and issues are known and you can estimate profits - and Mars is well known. Still waiting on corporations doing something completely unknown.
Those who do not learn from commit history are doomed to regress it.
God speed on you on your way.
LOL. How was CHina fighting the west?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I, for one, do like the sound. But is does not seem fair to leave out the ESA spacefarers, they should have a word of their own. How about aethronauts? Has a nice steampunk-ish sort of ring to it.
Les franges sont partout : bottines, sneakers, sur nos sacs ou nos petits hauts. Les franges accessoirisent une tenue et apportent un côté ethnique, branché. Pour toutes les fanatiques, voici un tuto pour apprendre à customiser vos chaussures avec des franges sur clips, amovibles à l'envi. Rien de bien compliqué, en quatre étapes c'est bouclé !Pour information, les mesures sont à titre indicatif car elles sont adaptées aux chaussures, à vous d'adapter en fonction du résultat que vous souhaitez. On vous conseille de commencer par mesurer l'espace entre la bride de cheville et la lanière du devant du pied. bandes de 14 cm de hauteur et 4,5 cm de largeur. Ensuite coupez 6 rectangles 10 cm de hauteur et 4,5 cm de largeu timberland Homme ..
In addition dragon 1 can go. Likewise, V2 could easily go in under 6 months or less if needed.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Please stop your own BS. First, the west will have ppl on the moon by 2022, if not sooner. Bigelow is desperate to go there due to needing lots of customers. Secondly, when BFR hits the market around 2021-2022, they need to fly at least monthly. What will they launch? Well there is not enough large sats needed (esp if 300 tonnes ). So spacex will support the lunar base. Afterall they will be the cheapest launch system going, likely by a factor of 10 fold. Third, nasa will no doubt be first customer at that base. However, it is nothing major to them since private space will do it. As such, nasa should continue to be devoted to helping private space make space stations, landers, in-situ processing, nuke engines, etc. Esp since this equipment can be used on both moon and Mars with slight changes.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Mars can be done in 3-4 months with chemical engine and 1 month with nuke engine.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Well, like Mars, plenty of easy solutions to those issues. In general, be at North and South Pole. Put base in the ground where temp is fairly level. Solar will work for most, but will still need nuke power. Mars also has issues, but easily solved.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
China is not, and never has been, a communist nation. It is a totalitarian nation with a command economy, that has introduced capitalism into fields that deal with exported goods. The rest remains under control of the gov.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hillary backs nasa and nukes. We will see science expanded again esp once FH and dragon V2 fly.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Technically Viking was called Voyager in its early days when it was a much larger more ambitious lander/orbiter that was to be launched on a Saturn V. Costs escalated, Saturn V availability was limited and it was recast as the more modest Viking program. The Voyager name was reused for the 2 Grand Tour missions
You kids need to learn more history. Just because your primary school didn't cover it doesn't change the facts of relentless Russian Japanese (western in all but location) British, German, Portuguese, etc. all fighting China and stealing territory continuously. Britain took Hong Kong 1841-1997, and Portugal took Macau 1557-1999. During this time the unequal treaties, general partitioning of all of coastal China like a plaything, multiple British wars so they could usurp Chinese government and sell opium, etc. Spend some time reading something besides twitter.
Voyager 1 and 2 had fuck all to do with Mars. Can you comprehend that much?
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
You are just a fucking idiot. That is all.
Oh please. We have 3 launchers in SLS, Atlas, and falcon. Yes SLS is not quite ready, but will be next year. Falcon has an issue with the helium tank which is being sorted out. Then have 3 capsules, of Orien, cst100, and dragon. Orien and cst100 hold 6 ppl while dragon can hold 7. Orien is ready. Dragon will be ready by end of 2017, while cst100 will be ready by mid 2019, if not early 2019. And none of this includes, SNC or BO , both if which should have orbital vehicles by 2020.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Where the hell are you getting 3+ years from?
The Mars rovers were launched in the summer of 2003, and were on the Martian dirt in January of 2004. Do you think that NASA used some kind of massively over-sized rocket for the payloads in order to get them there 6x faster than your timeline you pulled straight from your colon?
You do know that if it took 3 years to get from Earth to Mars, you would only be traveling at ~2,077 km/h. You also know that it takes an escape velocity of 40,270 km/h just to leave Earth's sphere of influence, right?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Not one of these launchers is man-rated yet. Russia has two man-rated launchers right now.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
Find a rocket that can launch from Earth, travel to Mars, land and then lift off again, and complete the return trip. All without maintenance except with supplies it carries, plus cargo and people with all supplies required for the entire trip. They don't exist, and the heaviest lift existing rocket Delta IV doesn't come close. The shuttle boosters were barely able to reach orbit with its weight given the infinite resources available at a launch site developed for that purpose for decades on Earth.
>scraps of Russian hardware. Shenzhou is Soyuz with a bigger service module
... China does the rework!
calm down you two! (and maybe get a room)
oh, my sweet illusion gone!
It totally is a throwback to the cold war, but here we are living the real world where some nations get their own separate English term for the job of working in space.
The etymology of astronaut is from Greek astron (star) and nautes (sailor), and the assonance with argonaut - a sailor aboard Jason's ship called Argo. It was coined by a Belgian, mirroring the French aeronautique. Cosmonaut is from Greek kosmos (universe, in Pythogorean usage) and nautes. Each of these words would seem out of place if used in translation - one would almost certainly find it as "Chinese astronaut" or "Chinese cosmonaut" in every actual usage.
I find taikonaut to be a very cool word that blends eastern and western language history in a modern, globalized reality. I like it, even though the Chinese don't use the term.
None of these words are conspicuously English, though. Spacefarer and spaceman probably have the most grounding in English, with etymologies going back to at least Middle English. All of the root words are still quite recognizable in their meaning (unlike astron and nautes). I think it's interesting that the actual Chinese term in use is closest to spaceman, which would probably never be used in translation because of the dismissive, even comical, connotation the word has in English. It's also unlikely that the term would ever be left as taikong ren, because it has no meaning for English speakers. Taikonaut it is.
Yeah, I forgot that NASA manufactured all the hardware used for Apollo. No wait, it was McDonnell Aircraft, Douglass Aircraft, Boeing, Grumman, Rocketdyne, and North American Aviation that designed and built the hardware to the specs that NASA put to bid.
Most of those are now just Boeing, by the way.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
False equivalence.
NASA doesn't need to deal with the bureaucracy of right-of-way disputes in order to go to the Moon. That shaves 20 years right there.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
Not being man-rated doesn't mean it can't actually take a human into orbit.
Do you think the rocket Gagarin was on was man rated, or the rocket that took sputnik out was satellite rated?
No, they weren't yet they did their job. Any country with ICBM has the capability to get a man in space. Now, the length of survival and safe return may be an issue, but in some cases those aren't important. We are 7 milliard people on this planet, some are by definition expendable - unmarried man without children over the age of 35 definitely are.
Britain took Hong Kong 1841-1997
Yes, and Hong Kong became a titan of industry, finance, and overall standard of living.
Why didn't the rest of China? Oh, that's right, because communism destroys and ruins everything it touches. Not to mention Mao and the millions he murdered and starved to death.
If I were Chinese I would do everything in my power to get to a "colonialist" hub so that they could "abuse" me to their colonialist heart's content. Far better than the patriotic zeal from Mao and co.
You kids need to learn more history....
Spend some time reading something besides twitter.
Seems like it's you who should pick up a history book and stop gulping down regurgitated propaganda from your leftist professor's mouths.
Don't mistake a lack of interest with a lack of capability.
Don't mistake a lack of money for a lack of interest.
No, it's new problems that were not existing in such a way before, and for those problems new solutions had to be found, because old solutions did not apply.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
All 3 our launchers, SLS, Atlas V, and F9, are man-rated.
Only 1 capsule, orion, is man-rated. However, dragon and cst-100 will be rated in 1 and 3 years, respectively.
Finally, add on Blue Origin and SNC's vehicle happening 4 years.
And Russia has only 1 man-rated launch system.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
No, just a guy that worked on MGS, Boeing, ULA, and Jeppesen.
And what kind of a fucking idiot are you?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Hell, you can not even get length of travel time down. It is WT like you that has fucked up our nation.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
you said that this was for the last 100 years. Yet, the fact is, that ALL OF THAT took place PRIOR to 100 years ago. For the last 100 years, CHina has been to itself, and the west has had very little to do with it, EXCEPT help them when Japan was raping and pillaging you.
So, lets try again. EXACTLY what warring has China had to do with the west? Keep in mind that prior to WWII, that Japan was not part of the west, and that Russia never has been.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yes, Chinese civilization was impressive...but then they stagnated for centuries with bureaucracy. A warning there for everyone to be sure.
They "landed on the moon" but we haven't gone there in 40 years?? If you call putting down a rover "landing" then we landed on Mars AGAIN four years ago. Their rover on the moon broke the 2nd day. U.S. rover on Mars is still going four years later! Which is more impressive and takes the most advanced tech?
FAST is 2nd largest S.A. telescope, Russia's is biggest. While inferior for some tasks, Arecibo can also do some things FAST can't since it has transmitters for radar astronomy, and it's part of the Very Long Baseline Array
As for off-world exploration, Chinese space program has yet to overtake the US in any area at all.
we put a rover on Mars in 2012 and you claim we don't "have the metal" to put probe on moon?
I'd argue that yes, it would be worthwhile to put lander on Venus by the USA as the tech now exists to capture much more data than the very impressive Russian program did decades ago.
Yes - Atlas launched the Mercury project of 1958. The others are a step backwards on Titan, which we no longer have.
Two of those are not ready and do not appear that they will be ready for a few years so that leaves what I mentioned above - Atlas as used in the Mercury project of 1958.
Von Braun's body is a mounderin' in the ground and we aint got the moon no more.
Yikes!
Only in China. Perhaps they should have phrased the missions objectives a bit better.
Mission Control:"OK were ready for you to put you into orbit and conduct some tests!"
Human Meat/Astronaut: "What tests will we be doing in orbit?"
Mission Control: "Well you'll be the first to test our life support systems for the greater glory of China and the Party!"
Human Meat/Astronaut: "What are the test parameters? Are we to adjust the climate control for efficiency?"
Mission Control: "Well if you die, we'll know it isn't ready to support life yet, and that we still have some bugs to work out!"
Human Meat/Astronaut: "..."
Mission Control: "What?"
Human Meat/Astronaut: "ACHOO! I think I have some sniffles coming on..."
The US is almost 50 years behind the US at this point. How long would it take the US to launch a manned moon mission?
Depends on how long it will take for SpaceX to get the Falcon Heavy up and running (~2017) and then man rated or for the ULA/Blue Origin to get their kit up and running (~2018) and man rated (perhaps further along than SpaceX)
F9 is man-rated according to NASA. Just because it has an issue at the moment, does not remove the man-rating from NASA. You know that.
However, you are correct that SLS is not man-rated yet. So, we have 2 that are.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Atlas 5 has nothing to do with the original Atlas. It has over twice the payload of the Titan II GLV used in Project Gemini (Project Mercury is tiny in comparison). Atlas 5 has almost as much payload as a Titan IV. Had they produced the Atlas 5 Heavy version it would have even more payload than the Titan IV, which is a contemporary rocket to the Space Shuttle, and would look not too dissimilar to a rocket named Rus-M the Russians at one time proposed to replace the Soyuz for launching the PPTS manned capsule. Problem with Atlas 5 is that it uses Russian RD-180 engines on the first stage. Which is why ULA is developing Vulcan to replace it.
The Falcon 9 has even more payload than an Atlas 5 though and all the major components are built in the US.
The engine technology used in both those rockets is easily better than what was available in the late 1960s anywhere in the world. The engines might be smaller than the Saturn V engines but the tech is better. Even the Falcon 9's Merlin-1D engine is better than the Saturn V's F-1 at everything but thrust. Be it ISP, chamber pressure, thrust-to-weight-ratio, reusability, etc. The thrust could have been increased by simply making the engine bigger. SpaceX instead chose to design the Raptor engine which is going to be a state of the art engine better than anything else available right now for the purpose it was designed to do. With technology which was not available during the space race and arguably more advanced than the Space Shuttle Main Engines.
I tend to think of basic research as adding to the bank of unused human knowledge, and applied research as drawing from it to solve problems. Whenever you reduce basic research by having your best minds doing applied research, you're drawing more from the bank than you're putting in. This means that, in the future, you're not going to have as much research in the bank, and things will progress slower. Since devoting all the best minds to applications means you get lots of impressive applications, this is normally mistaken for progress.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
What do you have against doing things cheaper? If we can cut the cost of sending stuff to low Earth orbit considerably, all space missions are easier. Consider it an investment.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Yes but it's not going to be launching people into space this year or the next. Atlas is what we have now.
Will the F9 really be launching people in the next couple of years?
If not I stand by what I wrote, since as you may recall I used the word "currently" but I'm willing to give "soon" a pass even though that's not what I wrote.
I would almost be willing to bet that Falcon 9 will put people in space first.
That's another thing that happened with the moonshots. Because that "bank of knowledge" was essentially empty in the areas that were required for the flights we were finally forced to do some fundamental research, and there was suddenly also money available for it.
A lot of scientists would, given the chance, opt for basic research because they, too, know that this is where the groundbreaking leaps in progress are. You know the saying, applied research gives you results but basic research leads to revolutions. And this is also where the Nobel prizes are. But it's usually quite hard to get money for it. It usually takes decades (at least) until basic research can be monetized. But this program pretty much finally forced management to cough up the dough for basic research, and scientists jumped on it.
The outcome was that the US was well into the 80s and even early 90s the leading nation in pretty much all related technology fields. That was money well invested. And, also important, it created domestic jobs because something so critical for national security cannot be sent abroad.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
So what happens when somebody enters illegally? It says they have the right to wonder freely. No where did it say that to wonder freely , you had to be legally there.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It is supposed to launch next year with a crew.
I think that it will depend on if SpaceX REALLY has solved the helium tank problem.
However, it should be noted that the launch abort worked perfectly and had the V2 been on the last launcher, it would have survived.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
atlas 5 will not launch a single person until they have a vehicle to take up. And CST-100 will not be ready until end of 2018, or possibly into 2019.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It doesn't say the country they're in can't kick them out again, if they're there illegally. You'd make more sense arguing that the rights of convicted criminals serving jail or prison sentences are violated.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Good point then. I was unaware that it was so close to completion.
Still only 1/8 of what a Saturn V can do and barely better than the European Space Agency can do though. Dust off the Titan IVB plans if you want something with the same capacity. I really do not get all the fuss. "Commercial Space" is not a new thing and Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Douglass etc etc have done better.
Actually, I think that you have missed things: the Falcon 9 can launch ~13 tonnes to leo on a reusable, but 23 tonnes to leo if f9 is expendable. IOW, it is close to the DIVH, only a fraction of the costs. And the FH will not do a xross-over, but will still get 54+ tonnes to leo. The falcons are currently volume limited, so supposedly, SX WAS working on new fairing. I'm sure at this moment that those ppl are working on F9's situation which appears to be their helium tank.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
That is what I was referring to - the ESA can do the same if you want to send your dollars into their "Commercial Space". The Titan IVB can do the same if you want to pay a US company enough for them to start building it again.
that has no bearing on the amount of money available to the USA to spend on space program, irrelevant.
by your reasoning the government can't buy office supplies, but they do